Do You Homeschool? Then You Need to Read This Article!

Whether you have been homeschooling for a month, a year, or a decade, you've inevitably faced the "questions". Questions about socialization, college, athletics, driver's ed, high-school biology, etc. etc. etc. and so on.....

It seems as if homeschoolers are ripe for questions from day one; but the flip side seems to be that there really is no flip side. We are expected to patiently answer any and all questions, smiling politely and pretending we've never heard this line of questioning before. But when we try to ask a few questions about, say, public schools as a whole or the issue of private schools being used as a last-ditch landing spot for students expelled from public school, well...ahem...we're pretty much told to keep quiet. No one wants to hear our questions, and often times no one really wants to hear our answers to their questions. They just kind of want us to....go....away.

I'm not planning on going away any time soon. And neither are my five remarkable, fantastic, amazing children. We're here to stay. And I'm here to say that homeschooling isn't going to go away; I believe it's going to continue to grow in the United States and around the world. Nope, we're not going away and it's probably time we started asking a few questions of our own. Here's one to start with ~ "What's so wrong with choosing to homeschool, anyway?" (And don't start asking me questions and then hand me that line of hooey that you're talking about some other homeschool family and you don't really have a problem with it...Pul-Leazz!! Give me some credit - after all, if I can teach high school math I think I know that if you are asking ME a question then you are, in all actuality, talking to ME!)

I'll tell you what's wrong with homeschooling - absolutely nothing! That's a hill I am ready to die on. And if you happen to have met any or all of my five kids, then you should be in total agreement with me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with homeschooling. My kids should convince you that homeschooling yields some pretty awesome results, and has formed five pretty socially functional, responsible young people.

This recent article from Forbes hits the nail on the head - then hits it again - and nails it a few more times just for good measure.

Do you homeschool? Then read this article! Know someone who is considering homeschooling? Have them read it! Have in-laws or friends or "others" who aren't sold on homeschooling? Force-feed it to them!! (Just kidding...sort of.)

Read it. Pin it on Pinterest. Post it on Facebook. Tweet about it. Put the link on your blog. Bookmark it, print it out, read it often, hand out copies. And then do all those things again. It's important that we be represented fairly and accurately, for a change, and this article does it better than most I've seen.

In fact, keep a couple of copies on your person to hand to the next person who questions you about homeschooling. Who knows, it might change their mind....or at least shut them up for a few minutes :)

Click HERE to read the article for yourself.

And forgive me for coming across much more forcefully than usual. I'm growing more and more passionate about homeschooling as the years go by, and maybe I'm really finding my voice for the first time. It's a cause near and dear to my heart, and I hope this post, and the excellent Forbes article, open the eyes of some who have misunderstood homeschoolers.

Day 257 done :)

Jan L. Burt